Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is believed to be one of the biggest and fastest growing health concerns facing the developed world. In the US alone, 26 million people have CKD and another 20 million more are at increased risk. CKD leads to dialysis and heart disease such that the associated medical costs total in the billions of dollars. A major cause of CKD is acute kidney injury (AKI), which is also associated with substantially increased healthcare costs, especially if dialysis (or a related kidney support technique) is required.
Chronic kidney disease can develop as a result of many different factors, but most notably, genetic predisposition and/or acute kidney injury. The degree of kidney injury is also associated with an incremental increase in long-term mortality. For example, fatalities occurring within one year after hospital discharge can be as high as 64% for patients with severe, dialysis-requiring AKI. Moreover, currently used markers of kidney function/injury, such as serum creatinine levels, are poor at discriminating long-term outcome of kidney disease. Regardless of the initiating factor, chronic kidney disease has a high proportion of patients requiring long-term dialysis (i.e., for example, renal replacement therapy or RRT). This treatment is expensive, time consuming, and can result in untoward side effects, including, but not limited to, blood vessel stenosis and/or thrombosis.
Thus, development of a biomarker that allows early identification and subsequent stratification of patients with AKI and also predicts recovery of kidney function, is a clinical tool having great need in the art.